


since you've been home, see what you have become

by Mici (noharlembeat)



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Angst, Gen, Happy Ending, M/M, TRK spoilers, post trk
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-21
Updated: 2016-05-21
Packaged: 2018-06-09 17:52:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,868
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6917287
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/noharlembeat/pseuds/Mici
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>It wasn’t ever supposed to be Declan; that was just an unhappy mistake. Ronan had called Maura and Calla, initially, and they agreed to watch Opal while Adam toured Harvard and Ronan accompanied him. But then one of the pipes at Fox Way burst, and Maura told Ronan that it didn’t matter if Opal was housebroken, they had bigger things to worry about.</i>
</p><p> <i>Then Gansey, who was normally so reliable as a backup, was called back to D.C. and he apologized but he absolutely had to go, because after the disaster on the day of the demon, he owed his mom. Henry Cheng was right out, because as far as Ronan could gather, Henry Cheng couldn’t feed himself and got kidnapped while wearing boxers, and the most responsible thing about him was a non-sentient bee.</i></p><p> <i>He was about to cancel, with all apologies to Adam, when Adam called Declan and Declan talked to Adam and the next thing Ronan knew, his brother was coming to the Barns.</i></p><p> <br/>or: Adam goes touring colleges, and Ronan comes along. And Opal, well. She stays with Declan.</p>
            </blockquote>





	since you've been home, see what you have become

**Author's Note:**

> This fic spun out of my control, and for that I apologize.

It wasn’t ever supposed to be Declan; that was just an unhappy mistake. Ronan had called Maura and Calla, initially, and they agreed to watch Opal while Adam toured Harvard and Ronan accompanied him. But then one of the pipes at Fox Way burst, and Maura told Ronan that it didn’t matter if Opal was housebroken, they had bigger things to worry about.

Then Gansey, who was normally so reliable as a backup, was called back to D.C. and he apologized but he absolutely had to go, because after the disaster on the day of the demon, he owed his mom. Henry Cheng was right out, because as far as Ronan could gather, Henry Cheng couldn’t feed himself and got kidnapped while wearing boxers, and the most responsible thing about him was a non-sentient bee.

He was about to cancel, with all apologies to Adam, when Adam called Declan and Declan talked to Adam and the next thing Ronan knew, his brother was coming to the Barns.

“He doesn’t know Opal,” Ronan pointed out. They hadn’t met, for reasons that included the fact that Opal still chewed everything in sight, that Declan was in the middle of his freshman semester and still only came to Henrietta for church, and that their truce was new, uneasy, and still needed to be treated gently. It was like a baby bird, if a baby bird came with the occasional uneasy sensation that they should be squabbling.

Adam looked unimpressed at this particular revelation. “So he’ll meet her. It’s only two nights,” he pointed out, and Opal offered Adam a piece of half-eaten chocolate chip cookie, which Adam took and put in his own mouth without consideration that Opal had been gnawing on it for a good five minutes. 

Ronan was half-disgusted and half-pleased. “Gross.”

“Suck it up, he’s here in an hour. Hey, Opal,” Adam said, swallowing the cookie. “Are you ready to meet your uncle Declan?”

Opal frowned. “Is he coming so you and Kerah can go away?” she asked, and Adam sighed and looked at Ronan as if he was going to refute this, but Ronan was just proud that, apparently, irrational attitude ran in the family.

Adam left for work, which was a chore, because Opal loved Adam almost as much as Ronan loved Adam - only less because Ronan was pretty sure that Opal never woke up in a night sweat, desperate to ensure that she was, in fact, Adam’s most cherished thing (this is probably because she was confident that this was true).

(It was not true).

(Ronan was 90% sure it was not true).

Opal whimpered and Adam came back to press an absent kiss on the top of her head.

(75%.)

The sun was just starting to set when Declan’s Volvo pulled up. It was strange, to look at Declan now. He looked more like their father when he was well-rested, and not stressed from keeping his little brothers alive. He still looked nothing like their mother. Ronan stepped out from the house; the plan was for Ronan to pick up Adam from work and they would drive north, with Ronan doing most of the driving. 

However, the key was Opal, who was currently standing in the doorway of the house, her hands fisted in Ronan’s shirt. “Let go,” he commanded, and as usual, she refused. “I mean it,” he said, just as Declan came up onto the porch, and she looked out from behind Ronan’s legs, and Declan looked down at her, and then back up at Ronan, somewhat unimpressed. 

“You could have at least told me yourself,” Declan sighed, and Ronan held back the snap that he wanted to inflict, the punch. That was instinct, the snake in him. Declan was already kneeling down though. “Hello,” he said, and he sounded sincere. “I’m Declan Lynch.”

It’s not like Opal had manners, though, so she kicked Declan in the knee, knocking him over, and running back into the house. Ronan felt this was both an excellent response, a good sign of her self preservation instincts, and probably an inauspicious start to a long weekend. “I can cancel,” Ronan offered, at the same time he offered a hand.

Declan scowled, his _Ronan Lynch, circa 16 years old_ scowl, and took Ronan’s hand to get up. “Well, she’s definitely _yours_ ,” he muttered. “Look, I’m here. I told Parrish I would, that I would help you out so you could help him. Just. Go.”

Ronan found this too easy; Declan had been so unbearably easygoing lately, as if he didn’t want to push their truce, either. “I left instructions. Don’t let her hold your phone unless you want to get a new one.”

Declan didn’t say anything, just headed in the house. Ronan felt some tension build up between his shoulder blades, right where he knew there was a tree in the center of his tattoo. He thought of his mother. He thought of Declan’s displeasure.

He thought of Adam.

He waited a moment, and then went in after Declan, only to find him sitting outside the hall crawl space. It was a tiny secret compartment in the wall, one that Ronan never knew the purpose of except to entertain little boys. It was the perfect little clubhouse space, fitting one person perfectly or two people who were willing to squeeze, provided those two people were under four feet in height. Declan had taken his tie off and was rolling it up. 

There was shuffling happening inside the crawl space, because it was Opal’s second favorite hiding place (the first was under Ronan’s bed). 

Declan looked up at Ronan, and Ronan looked down at his brother, and considered it - well.

Declan knew all the hiding places Opal would try, because they were all of Ronan’s hiding places too.

-

The first three hours were the quietest ones. 

Declan watched Ronan leave, and went and grabbed the _care of Opal_ instructions that clearly Parrish had written, because it was both legible and clear, and didn’t skip over details. If Ronan had written them it would have been mostly garbage and no clear instructions at all, Declan was sure.

(That was unfair. He realized, within a second of seeing the inside of the house, how much Ronan loved this little girl. It was clear in the toys scattered around, all lovingly dreamed up and wondrous, it was clear in the way she clung to Ronan before she decided to kick Declan in the knee, it was clear in how he lingered, waiting, unsure if to leave.)

(That was unfair but he couldn’t help it, the thought came anyway.)

The instructions said her bedtime was just after sunset, that she liked the book of Irish fairytales on the bedside, that she needed a bath before bed, and that she needed to be fed before her bath. This seemed both easy enough and incredibly routine. Did Ronan do this every day? Was Ronan both responsible and reliable enough to raise a child with this level of care?

Declan knocked on the crawlspace door. “Opal?” he said, and got silence in response. “I’m going to make you dinner, what do you like to eat?” he asked, even though there was a list of favorite foods there, written on the paper. At the top was _cricket spaghetti_ , whatever the hell that meant. Right under it was _chicken tenders with cheese sauce_ which seemed equally gross but actually comprehensible. 

There was silence, again. 

Declan knocked again. Ronan used to do this, too. Get into snits and hide. “All right, you can stay in there, if you really want,” he said, because cooking without her was probably going to be easier anyway. 

The kitchen was only messy in the way that the kitchen at the Barns was always messy - used by people who lived there, the dishes drying but a pair of spoons in the sink, a splatter of tomato sauce on the stove, but the food easily found. Ronan’s headphones were on the counter, sure. But that was all that was on the counter. It looked so much like home that Declan had to ignore the injury to his heart. If he focused hard enough, he could pretend like he wasn’t going to swing around to his mother coming through the door with some new project in her hand, to see Matthew and Ronan squabbling in an overly fond way over some new game or adventure.

When Parrish had called him, he thought maybe Parrish forgot that this was Declan’s home, too, once upon a time. That Ronan didn’t hold the monopoly on family loss, although Declan experienced it differently.

But he was infinitely precise, too, in how he rationed emotion, and he rationed them now. He cooked to the level he could - frozen chicken tenders and jarred cheese sauce, and he took a plate full of this back to the crawlspace door, set the plate down, knocked, and left.

His room was the same.

No, not the same. A little cleaner - it looked like someone had, at some point, changed the sheets on the bed. It smelled like cleaner and a little like linens and lavender. When he had been here - was it just a month ago? - for Ronan’s birthday, he hadn’t really gone into his room, he hadn’t really spent time thinking about the house. Now it was him and Ronan’s monster child, alone, and everything was pressing in on him. 

Declan looked around the room and thought he recognized the boy who lived here once, but realized that a boy had never really lived there. His father had pulled that boy apart and turned him into the pragmatic that had always been. The realest thing in the family, in the house, in the county. 

He heard a knocking and a thump, and he headed back into the hallway. A tiny pale hand was grabbing at the chicken and pulling it, piece by piece, into the crawlspace. Declan watched this for the entire time it went on, until finally Opal emerged, her hair fuzzy and covered in dust. She looked up at Declan with a confused look on her face.

“Parrish says you take a bath after dinner,” Declan said without a hint of play to him. Matthew would have made it a game, clumsy and puppylike. Their mother would have convinced her with air and light. Their father would have done it with stories and charm. Declan was not without charm. But he was also unsure if this child could be magicked that way, when Declan’s magic was so impotent in the face of Ronan’s. Declan’s magic wasn’t really magic at all.

Opal looked suspicious, then. “Are you going to make me?” she asked, her chin stubborn. God. She looked nothing like Ronan but everything like Ronan. It hurt Declan’s heart a little.

“I’ll trade you,” Declan offered, thinking. Ronan, too, was easily bought, when they were small, when Ronan still loved him and liked him without hesitation. 

She still didn’t seem appeased, but she crawled out a little. “All I want is Kerah,” she said, accented and small. 

He knew, from Parrish, the piece of paper, and Ronan’s obnoxious bird, that Kerah was what all of Ronan’s recent dream things called him. “I have stories about him,” Declan considered. “They’re not as good as the real thing, but it’s of him when he was small.”

She frowned. “He’s always been big,” she said. “He was born big,” she clarified.

“I was born bigger,” Declan lied, easily. 

And because Declan lied easily, she believed him. Her tiny, dainty hooves, brown and odd, clicked on the floor as she came closer to him. “I want three stories,” she demanded, “and two more at bedtime.”

The instruction sheet had discussed this. _One story_ it said _but she’ll argue for two_ , and Declan wondered why they were rationing out stories to her.

“Three stories and one at bedtime,” he countered, and she seemed to find the lack of giving in both reassuring and frustrating, because she grabbed his hand at the same time that she made a noise of contempt and swore at him in Latin, eloquently, as only a child of Ronan Lynch could manage.

-

Declan found himself unable to sleep, though, after he had given Opal a quick bath and put her in Matthew’s old bed, in Matthew’s old room, that now looked like something out of a fairytale, but not the fairytales that Disney told. It looked like the fairytales his mother told, once upon a time, when he was already not her favorite but she would never neglect him anyway. Fairytales where someone always ended up kidnapped and changed, or dragged under the sea, to live with the roan. 

He found himself sitting on the porch with a beer and a longing, until dawn pinked the sky and he realized he had sat up all night, insomnia overtaking him. Sleep had been a rough thing, running roughshod over him long before his father died. He used to watch his father sleep, he used to be the one who sat over him in parking lots and hotel rooms when Niall dreamed their fortune into reality in the shape of miraculous trinkets and strange toys. Someone had to. Niall would wake up, stone still, with whatever it was in hand, and Declan would make sure nothing hurt him.

Declan wasn’t good for much, he thought, but he was good at that. Making sure nothing hurt them.

Opal woke up in a bad mood, though, the peace forged with stories forgotten. The first tantrum happened at breakfast, and ended with Declan covered in cereal and milk and Opal kicking him, again, her hooves hard and impossible; that was a bruise that was going to last. The second tantrum came mid-morning, as Declan took the cows out, and resulted in a stampede.

The third tantrum, the one that cinched it (it was always threes, Declan thought unwillingly, hating the cliche of it) was the worst one, though, and it came in the mid afternoon, right when the mix of low blood sugar and exhaustion was the worst for the two of them.

Foul moods were not a Lynch trait unique to Ronan. The Lynch men grew poor moods like a staple, excepting Matthew. Declan’s mood was the reason that Ronan couldn’t take the entirety of the blame for their Niall Lynch shaped schism. 

Opal started it, which was something that, in retrospect, was deeply unfair for Declan to think because Opal was _actually a little girl_. Declan was sitting on the porch, when she walked up, and in a calculated fit, dropped a cow patty on his head.

“ _Are you kidding me_?” Declan roared, and Opal screeched in reply, something high pitched and birdlike.

And then she aimed to kick him again, except that this time Declan didn’t stand for it. He dodged her nimbly, once, and then twice, and grabbed her by the ankles, hoisting her up and upside down. “Let go!” she yelled out, in Latin, and let out a long and altogether expletive laden sentence as he carried her out to the creek. “ _Let go, Kerah, Kerah!_ ” she screamed, as if Ronan was around any corner.

“Jesus Mary, I have _had it_ ” Declan yelled back, and she punched at him with tiny fists, managing to get a piece of his shirt in her hand and then in her mouth. Clearly her greatest weapon were her hooves, though, because that was all she could do - gnaw on his shirt (he’d bill Ronan for a new one) and scream in increasingly high pitches, until they were at the creek and Declan was tossing her in.

A memory came to him, just like that, unbidden, of doing the same thing to Ronan when he was seven, and Ronan was six - it was less graceful then, because they were roughly the same size. Ronan had been annoying him because that was what Ronan was good at, being annoying, and Declan threw him in the creek in punishment. 

And Declan had been grounded for that.

Except there was no Aurora to ground him this time. There wasn’t anyone except Opal, wet and sputtering and furious, screaming, “I hate you, I hate you,” and Declan yelling back “well I’m not your biggest fan right now, either!” until they were both wet, because Declan didn’t really throw her in as much as he had waded into the water and dumped her.

Because he didn’t actually know if she could swim.

She clung to him, upset and crying but still clinging, and they both stood in the water, soaked, until Opal wailed “ _I miss Ronan_ -”

And Declan picked her up then, and held her close. “So do I,” he reassured her, and she cried until she couldn’t anymore, and he took her back to the house to dry off.

After a shower and warmth and chocolate, and a fort made of pillows and blankets, Opal finally exhausted by temper and too much exposure to water, it seemed, and also the battle to wash her hair, she sat curled up against one of the couch cushions, staring at Declan, who pushed at the marshmallows floating in his hot chocolate. “Tell me a story,” she asked.

The night before, he had told her Ronan-stories, and they had captivated her, but they were funny Ronan-stories, like Ronan getting chased by a goose when he was five or Ronan riding a cow because they didn’t have a horse. Little kid Ronan-stories. True Ronan-stories.

“Once upon a time, there was a kingdom with a prince,” he started, maybe not sure where this story was going to go. This was the kind of story Matthew liked, he thought. “And the queen and king liked him, but the king was always busy and the queen was always sleeping, so the prince was lonely. 

“One day, the prince asked for a little brother, and so the king and queen thought about it and decided that yes, they would give him one, but it would cost him something. He had to promise two things: that as long as he lived, he would protect his little brother, and that he had to give up the ability to dream.” Opal gasped at this. A girl made from dreams would, Declan thought. It was a nice touch.

Declan continued. “He asked, forever? And the king said, no. When the younger prince is all grown up, you can dream again. Until then, he’ll have to dream for you. We’re going to take all your dreams, and give them to him, and when he’s done, you can have them back.” Declan suddenly felt unease - but he didn’t stop. “And when the prince agreed, it was because he thought he could love a little brother more than his dreams. It would only be a little while, he thought. His little brother would love him too, right? Enough to give them back. And when the younger prince was born the flowers burst into bloom and the ravens laughed, and the older prince loved him with all his heart.” Declan stopped a moment.

Opal looked surprised when he stopped. “Keep going,” she demanded.

“You have no sense of patience,” he said, but he smiled a little. “But the younger prince, he was too magical. The older prince’s dreams weren’t even needed, really, that’s how magical he was. He made a kingdom all his own, with toys that the older prince couldn’t understand, or play with, and he made a little brother who would love him, and playmates who would always look to him. 

“And the older prince, he was left behind.” Declan stopped.

He realized he didn’t know how this story would go. His own life had been muddled, complicated. He loved his family, but he thought, well.

Loving them was so easy, when they were so extraordinary.

Opal had crawled into his lap before he knew what had happened. She was curled there, not holding him. Maybe she was incapable of that kind of comfort, but her weight was reassuring, just the same. “I don’t want you to go away either,” Opal said, as if she knew how this story ended. 

He couldn’t tell her he didn’t know where he belonged, but she lay a tiny hand on his arm. “I’m sorry, can I tell a different story?” he asked her.

She seemed to think about it for a minute, and idly chewed on the hem of his shirt. “Can I tell you one?” she asked him, and he agreed.

So she told him one, half in English, half in Latin, about a queen in a vale, who was trapped there because of a spell that would put her to sleep, and who loved her three sons so much that she asked for them, in a row. Eldest, middle, youngest. 

Declan fell asleep there, before she got to the ending.

-

Ronan probably should have enjoyed the trip more than he did. “You can always call, you know,” Adam told him as they drove home, and Ronan growled at the thought of it. He wasn’t sure what to expect when they pulled up. “There’s the house, look, it’s fine, do you think your brother would have burned it down?” Adam asked, infuriatingly calm.

“He’s probably dead, Opal probably killed him and is feasting on his corpse, and I’ll have to pay for the therapy of accidental cannibalism,” Ronan replied, barely turning the car off before he marched up into the house. 

Adam followed, but for once, Ronan’s internal compass was not pointing north to Adam. The living room was a disaster area, and in the middle was Declan, asleep sitting up against the couch, blankets pulled around them. Opal was asleep too, right in his lap, her hands fisting the blanket. Declan’s arms were around her like she was the most precious thing he had ever held.

It occurred to Ronan, suddenly, that he held Matthew like that, too. That Declan always treated Ronan’s dreams like that. Precious, perfect. That he had known the whole time what Matthew was, and he had always loved him, just like that.

There was evidence of terrorism lying all around them - cereal on the floor, a stain on the wall that looked possibly like mud, a chewed up cell phone on the coffee table, hoofprints on the ceiling. Ronan wasn’t stupid - he knew the evidence of a temper tantrum when he saw one. Or two. Or _five_ , Jesus God, what was that on the fucking _carpet_?

But Opal’s eyes were closed, she was dreaming, he could tell, and Declan still held her like he hadn’t just harnessed a storm.

Declan loved her so much, and he barely knew her. Declan more than gave more shits than anyone ever gave him credit for.

“What an asshole,” Ronan growled. 

Adam came up next to him. “What did Declan do?” he asked, before surveying the mayhem.

“Not him,” Ronan said, because Ronan didn’t lie.

He took Adam back outside, closed the door, let the two people inside keep sleeping. Adam sat down next to him on the porch. It was quiet.

-

Declan dreamed.

**Author's Note:**

> title is from the lovely song Prodigal Daughter by Pearl and the Beard, which is an Opal song if I've ever heard one. I am, as usual, eggsac on tumblr.


End file.
